Anya walked around before spotting some deer tracks. Okay. Deer tracks! Woo! ... and that was probably all she was going to figure out about them. They looked just... like tracks.

She leaned in closer. Nope. Still tracks. She frowned slightly. This... wasn't as easy as she thought it would be. What was she supposed to do anyway? PRETEND to be this deer? What did deers even do?

She sighed and stared at the tracks once more. Umm... Okay. So... the tracks changed directions. Deers could change their minds. Something she didn't know before. Or care to know.

Okay. Now... there had to be a reason for that, right?

One of those tracks looked deeper. So... maybe it was just... hanging out there for a bit. Deers did that sometimes. Like... when they were scared. So... maybe something startled the deer... and it changed directions? Yeah. ... that was a good enough answer for her.

Or maybe the deer just decided it wasn't going that way? There didn't have to be a reason for everything. Maybe it just wasn't thirsty anymore.

Okay. Now. How did this apply to her walk? ... erm. She... wouldn't be thirsty on her walk...? Meh. Good enough for her.

Assignment. Consider yourself done.

Xavier started feeling confused at what Professor Elwood just said. Did seers REALLY decide what they were going to do based on animal footprints? Now since they had all seen the tracks, did that mean that this was going to be all of their fates? Or did it only count when you are the first one to find them?

It sounded slightly bats to her, but she put those thoughts aside for now so that she could hopefully find something interesting and get some points for the ravens. And she didn't have to wait long, just by a pile of pretty pale rocks were a set of footprints.

At first she couldn't determine if these footprints were cat or dog footprints. Both kinds of animals seemed to leave similar ones. She assumed it was dog, because cats don't leave toe footprints, but these tracks did. At least that's what she remembered, these might still be cat. The footprints vanished at the edge of the rocks, the ground at this point onward was covered more in small rocks that sand, so further searching would more than likely be pointless.

After observing them for a long time, she stood up and raised her hand. "Professor, these footprints start off between two piles of rocks, but then they enter this clearing of sand where there are nor boundaries from the left or the right. But then they keep going and they meet a small wall of rocks, and that's when they stop." She shrugged and continued, "I don't know for sure what this would mean to a seer, but it COULD mean that I am or will be or have been trapped on a path going only one way. Like I didn't have a choice or something because there was something blocking me from going anywhere else on either side. But then the boundaries vanish and I am free to go whatever direction I want. But then I keep going forward and I curve to the right a bit and that is when something blocks me from going anymore in that direction." She paused, before saying awkwardly, 'Not that I am saying this about myself, you know."

Alyssa quickly took down notes as Professor Elwood gave her interpretation of bird's characteristics through its tracks.

Now it was their turn to search for more prints and try to interprete them like as if they were out hiking or walking. So Alyssa walked along the lake shore, looking down at the sand, trying to spot any other animal tracks.

Then she came across some. From the looks of it, it looked like the tracks from some feline animal. Maybe a cat. But what was a cat doing near the lake. 'I thought cats hated water?' Alyssa thought to herself.

She shrugged. 'Maybe that's why the prints are headed away from the water and back onto the rocks. The way the tracks are messed up near the rocks could possibly be caused when it was trying to get a proper foothold on these slippery rocks. One thing is for sure it doesn't look like it was rushing to get away. Its foot prints look solid. Some have heavier indentations. This could mean that it just stood around for awhile before walking again. Nothing hurried about that.' Alyssa concluded.

Looking at tracks, Alyssa began to apply it to herself. Was she supposed to present her answers to the Professor or was she supposed to keep it to herself until the Professor asked for their findings? Alyssa wasn't sure.

So she did what she would normally do in a class, she raised her hand trying to catch Professor Elwood's attention. "Professor I found some feline foot prints here. I think that it belongs to a cat. From its gait, it looks like it is taking its own sweet time enjoying the scenery....although I'm still trying to figure out what a cat would be doing anywhere near water....unless it was trying to fish." Alyssa smiled just at the thought of a cat trying to catch a fish using its paws. But back to her interpretations. She studied the tracks again.

"Look here." Alyssa pointed at the heavier indentations on the sand. "This shows that it paused for awhile, took a look around before finding the easier and more convenient way of getting off the sand."

"How it relates to my own journey? I would say that I would be enjoying my walk until I got tired of where I was and decided to change paths, looking for the easiest exit out. No rush...no fuss" Alyssa explained. 'At least that's what I think.' Alyssa thought to herself.

Okay, she got this. Peyton was finding herself into the lesson. Like, REALLY into it. And that said quite a lot. The girl disliked school with a passion. She'd rather be out flying and playing Quidditch more than anything. Hm. Maybe miracles did exits in the case of Peyton Baltazar.

She walked around after they were allowed to seek prints of any kind, until she came upon some familiar looking ones. Not that she knew the animal, but they resembled the prints of a certain cat of hers that was back home.

Peyton squatted down, her knees together and her parchment on top of them. Hmm. She stroked her invisible beard. Hmmm...

"Well, these aren't like the bird where the prints suddenly appear because it landed. These tracks have a trail." She pointed at them. "They look like cat ones too." She bit her lip, thinking of what else she could observe.

Aha! "I notice the gaint--" that's how you use the cool new word right? "--start out faint. Almost as if it was just lazily walking or knew where it was going. Then they get a bit more prominent," she said, pointing at the specific prints with her quill. "Like, it stopped...or maybe in crouched down when it saw something like prey." Could be possible, no? "Then the prints disappear due to the rocks. Maybe it did crouch and then pounced on it's prey?" Or...ORR... "Maybe it saw the bird who's prints belonged to." Connect the dots --or prints in this case-- I think so!

So that were her thoughts of all this. Which was cool. Now how would it relate to her? "Hmmm...I think this may mean that while I'm on my 'hike' I will know where I'm going." Pause. "Also, I'll probably find something that interests me and I'll go for it." It also sounded like her, heh.

So...Ella was a bit confused by this whole thing. She got the whole identifying animal tracks bit, that was easy enough. She was really interested in animals so she figured she'd be able to do this part without too much trouble. The other part though, the one where you had to like...figure out what the animal was up to when it made the tracks, that was much more difficult. The blonde wasn't like an...animal whisperer or something. ...Oh! But that'd be really cool if she was!

...

Wandering around a bit, the fifteen year old found some deer tracks in the soft sand/mud. She paused and bent down, observing them for a second. Deer were just...soooo cute and Ella couldn't help but think of Bambi. WIBBLE! No...no more thinking of Bambi. Ells was going to pretend that this deer was...Fred. Yup, Fred the deer out for a stroll by the lake. Seemed legit, yeah?

"So this erm deer...who I'm gonna name Fred...erm Fred was maybe out for a stroll along the lake because well, it's nice strolling weather, isn't it?" Seemed like it to Ella. "Well it seems like Fred was walking off in this direction..." And she pointed, indicating the direction the deer had been going initially. "When it seemed to have a change of heart and turned off towards there." And she pointed again, showing the curve in the path that the deer took. "Perhaps since it's such a nice day, the deer saw a person or several people and decided to get out of the open." Cause deers could be kind of shy, yeah? Seemed like a good interpretation to her.

And how did this relate to Ella's own journey? "Well maybe this means that when I go on a journey, I'll want to do it so I can have some peace and quiet...and if I come across someplace crowded...well then I'll decide to find solitude again?" Because Ella did like to think and actually, the lake just happened to be the spot where she usually did her thinking. Hey, maybe this was a good subject to learn about after all.

Bliss positively BEAMED at Professor Elwood when she approved of her answer. Though she could see now that she had been looking more for how the little duck had been feeling when it went on it's little adventure. Or something like that anyway. Nevertheless, she had seemed quite happy with Bliss' answer and that was good enough for her. Although Bliss had answered the question a little differently to how she'd wanted, her answers had been correct, so that was a plus. The third year once again felt kind of smart.

She then listened as Professor Elwood explained how the duck moved, how it was possibly feeling, what made it do what and consequently, what it meant to people reading the tracks. It was a lot to take in and Bliss was surprised by the fact that she understood what was going on. So she could actually complete the task without having to wander around and look like an idiot. Not that she normally did that. WHISTLE. COUGH. Anyway, the only thing she didn't understand was how to record it, did she kept the thoughts and interpretations to herself, or did she tell the Professor, or did she write them down? Probably to herself, who could know what the tracks might mean to HER as a person.

Her thoughts could be scary or dangerous. =|

Off she went, walking about ten feet, more or less from where they had all been standing previously, before finding an interesting looking track. It belong to a...SNAKE. Which reminded her of Terry, which made her want to leave. Terry being gone, even if it was only for the term, was tough. Bliss shook her head slightly and looked again at the tracks, it looked to her like it belonged to one snake and this snake (if she was reading the tracks right) had turned around, maybe it had seen a threat or had it's path blocked or simply changed it's mind. Any of those situations was quite likely. She wasn't quite sure how it all fit into her own views. Then suddenly it clicked....

OH. BEAM.

So this would mean that...oh, she didn't know. Did it mean what was happening RIGHT now? Or just recently? Or a current situation that she was in? HMMM. Bliss thought about it for a minute and realised that like the snake, once she'd reached this point, she'd wanted to turn around and the snake had done so. So for her, it had been a memory and a feeling towards someone that had triggered the change, but for the snake....unless it had another friend-snake to be sad remembering, she doubted that it applied to it too.

Whaaaaaat else.

What could this snake turning around mean? Maybe it meant that she'd reached a dead end it a certain situation, like the Terry situation. That seemed to be a dead end right now, she'd sent him a couple of letters, but only one reply, explaining that he wasn't coming back. Moving on...Could it also mean that she reached a turning point, she done something and there was no going back? No wait...the snake HAD gone back. Maybe...she'd made a choice that she was regretting and this was a sign that she COULD change her mind. Like...like the Alec thing. Liking him. She could change that of course, but she...she didn't particularly want to.

Right so, what now?

Hoping that she'd thought about stuff enough and got enough thoughts and evidence, she made her back to the lake's edge. Well, near to it....she'd found a tree to lean against. While everyone else was still looking, Bliss took the chance to write down some notes, so that if she had to, she'd be able to explain her findings and so on. Possibly earn some points. The little badger then slide down the tree and propped her notebook up on her knees and started to scribble away...

Just walk around and find some footprints to study? Mo considered the directions, and he considered following the professor to see what her footprints looked like, but... but but but the concept of the lesson was just a bit too interesting for him to pass up the opportunity to participate, and Mo scuttled off in search of prints.

He spotted the deer tracks almost immediately, and Mo sat down right there in the sand to study them. They were deep, well apart and sort of meandering, which indicated the deer took its time and didn't seem to have a particular direction. Maybe uncertainty or caution? And there... those looked like OTHER prints crossing the deer's, and Mo wondered if crossing trails meant something really special or if it just meant two animals were here in generally the same timeframe.

Probably meant something.

Further along, the tracks dragged a bit, leaving a long scuff in the sand that almost looked like the creature had tripped, and Mo's head popped up so he could eye the treeline in case there was a limping deer nearby who needed medical treatment. No? Okay, carry on...

"Professor?" He raised his hand and waved at her, considering how hard he was to see there on the ground. "I found these deer tracks here, and it looks to me like the deer was sort of... moving slow and cautious-like here at the beginning. Maybe on account of this is open ground by the lake and the sand feels weird beneath his feet? He wasn't comfortable here, y'know? And then see where another animal, like a cat or maybe a panda bear escaped from a zoo, crossed his path there? And after he crossed paths with the cat, then he sort of stumbled."

So wait. That had to mean something to MO now, right? Something about his path? Ponderponderponderponder. "So I think this means that I'm going to be unsure of myself because I'm in unfamiliar territory and out of my comfort zone. And then I meet someone or have some sort of encounter with someone at complete cross purposes to me, and it will cause me to stumble. In the metaphorical sense, not the physical sense. I'll falter. That's kind of... depressing. D'you think we could do kangaroo prints next?"

It was an interesting point, wasn't it? But interesting people like her tended to state interesting things, yep. She continued to beaaaaam at Professor Elwood as she explained their assignment with tracks and tried not to display her confusion. What is she didn't find any tracks? Hmm? What was she to do then?

Either way, Alice behaved like a good little girl and started to waddle around, keeping an eye out for prints and things, but she kept getting distracted. There were just SO many things to look at. See? There were those shiny rocks over there, and the Lake looked awfully nice today.. was that the squi— tracks! She saw some!

.. What exactly were they supposed to be, though? Definitely NOT chickens. These ones looked like they went in a line.. snakes. The lioness made a moue of distaste. Nope, she didn't like Snakes, the Slytherin kind nor the animal kind. But, unfortunately, it was what she found. "Um.. I think this snake.." More frowning. ".. was going somewhere, but then it realized that it should be going the other way, or it might have it a dead end. And then it probably wanted to turn around.. and then it DID." That made loads of sense to her, mmhmm.

But Alice had no clue what the turning meant to her. "Does.. does the change of direction mean that I'm doing something wrong, and that I should.. turn.. my life around?" That was a very, very weird meaning. She liked her life very much, thank you. "And then.. once I change my path.. I'd find happiness? Or safety.. or whatever it was that the snake was looking for?"

She was comparing herself to a SNAKE. This. This was madness.

Alex wrinkled his eyebrows. Wouldn't all this walking around RUIN all the perfectly nice footprints and eventually there wouldn't be any for them to examine? They better be careful! He turned on his heel however and began to look. There had to be some around here somewhere...

OOOOH, these were interesting! Alex knew the footprints were snakes because he'd seen plenty of garden snakes in his backyard growing up. He always stayed farrrr away from them, but he still liked watching them. From afar.

"These snakes look like...they're running from something," Alex said to answer the professor. "They were clearly moving fast to make such deep prints in the ground. Maybe the deer or the cat startled them? You know, I bet the cat was chasing them," he said, thinking out loud. That was SUCH a cat thing to do.

As Belle was hearing the professor, she was excited to go be on her own and studying the prints. She took her notebook with her and pen and looked at the tracks. She determined which one to chose. Belle saw the deer prints very distinctly. She knew they weren't cat prints because those are bigger and snakes are slimmer. Belle did not want to study the snakes prints. Snakes really creeped her out. Belle had cats on her farm so she knew all about the cats and what they could do and mean.

Belle then was studying the deer prints and thinking about what the deer could have been doing. The tracks were spread out and it looked like it was in fright or running away. Belle made a note like that in her notebook.

SPOILER!!: Belle's notebook

Divination Notes

• Small Tracks
• Look Heavy
• Changed direction
• Fear
• Curiosity

Links to my life?

• Fear of facing challenges
• Tired of dealing with emotions
• Facing the unknown

Belle then raised her hand, "Professor i think the deer might have been running away due to fright. I could have been startled as it was wandering the lake because of the commotion of students or other nature animals." Then Belle saw a little track that meant it could have changed direction. "It could have also changed it's direction when it was scared..." Belle thought out loud.

Then Belle felt peace as she was exploring nature. She was also considering what the tracks meant to her personal life. It could have something to do with fear of challenges, tired of dealing with emotions, not ready to grow up so soon....Yeah the last one. Belle was not mentally prepared to graduate yet. It always kind of scared her.

She wasn't sure but she would assume the Professor thought the bird wasn't very right in the head as well. It seemed logical enough.

....and that story seemed even more logical, boring, but logical nonetheless. Of course now the bird didn't seem nearly as interesting to Lex and she found herself caring less and less about whether something had actually scared the thing or not. Her attention span had been stretched as far as it could on this particular thing and she was ready to move on.

Was the Professor ready to move on as well? Oh! She was! Good.

Alexa listened to her as she gave the instructions but didn't stay still long enough for the woman to get the last word out. Nope. She was already off looking for footprints that could tell her about her journey or whatever it was it was telling her about. If she saw any hopping-looking prints she'd be following them. It meant the possibility of yet another chocolate frog and NO she didn't care that she already had so many. One could never have enough; this was stated sometime before, wasn't it?

She trailed off a bit and didn't stop walking until she came across...a line in the ground, 'cept it wasn't just a line. Snake prints maybe--a venomous one??? Ooooooooooooooo.

She began nomming on what might have been her fourth frog while she stared down at it. Chocolate was brain food; she needed it to think logically.

Hmmm, now let's seeeeeee. Lex tilted her head and stared long and hard at the tracks. They're not very neat, the thing was obviously in a hurry. "Professor I found something! An eager snake!" Because they didn't have enough of those already. Ugh. "This could only mean one thing." Actually it could have meant several things but at the moment she could only think of one therefore, IT COULD ONLY MEAN ONE THING. "This is a smart snake, with a lot of common sense, so here's what I'm thinking." She pointed out into the distance. "Somewhere over theeeere is a bag of candy," Yup and she gave a solemn nod; words of wisdom being spoken right now, thanks to the chocolate frogs she was devouring one by one, "the snake knew this and snakes don't normally like that stuff but see, this one was smarter, like I already said, so he totally wanted it hence the obvious rush in these tracks--" She stopped and gasped as a thought hit her. "He might have had a brother! YES! A brother who would steal all the candy for himself if he didn't hurry!!!" Eeeek! That was terrible!

What was even more terrifying was the EXTRA bit of logic that came shortly after. This had something to do with her own path-journey-thingy!!! "This means I have to hurry!!!" Her eyes widened tremendously with worry. "Don't you see what this means?! Someone's going to try firsting me to my candy!!! I can't let that happen!! You have to help me!" She didn't want her candy being stolen again. Once was enough!

It seemed that whatever Selina had said had REALLY struck a chord with Professor Elwood. Huh. That was weird. The two of them usually got on quite famously for obvious reasons. Well, not OBVIOUS reasons, but obvious reasons to the two of them. And now she was sort of being a little weird about the disease comment.

And that was when it struck her. Oh yeah... Elwood TOTALLY had a bird, didn't she? It was not that Selina thought ALL birds were gross, but those were duck prints and no matter what Elwood said ducks were gross. Especially the kind that bit her. Why did they always bit her? Did she have some sort of tracking signal on her that said bit this ginger? Yeah, she did not think so either. But yes, ducks were gross. Elwood's bird was fine, but WILD birds were gross and disease ridden.

But just in case Elwood was upset with her or something she was going to just keep her mouth shut... so she moved onto the task at hand.

There were a ton of prints that she had out for all of them to look at. Like the duck they supposedly had to figure out why they had gone the pattern that they had gone. Their gate would clue them in. So she took a look at the track of prints over to the fair left and got down on her knees to examine it.

The tracks seemed to be some kind of hoofed animal. So it narrowed down the prints drastically. There was also a lot of motion in what seemed like a circle. The animal was definitely heading somewhere. It had an end destination. She took a closer look at the hooves and figured that it had to be either a reindeer or some kind of deer. And she knew for sure that the deer was heading in one specific direction...

But what struck her as odd was that amongst the hooves were another set of prints that seemed to be some kind of feline or dog or something. It was distinctly paws. So was the deer getting chased by something? There did not seem to be any sign of struggle. So what did this all mean? She could not be sure...

Clearing her head of all of these thoughts she TRIED to stay focused on just the hooves that she was looking at. Pursing her lips, she stood up from the ground and started to follow the tracks. It seemed to her that the deer was going somewhere- maybe it was traveling home or to a place that it needed to go. Personally, it made Selina feel kind of anxious. The thought of having an end destination made Selina think of her recruitment and signing to the Harpies after graduation. In just a year she would be doing what she loved and being PAID to do it. What an awesome job. Seriously.

Maybe she was meant to find these tracks. After all there was the whole part of the tracks that had the interference from the paws, which did make Selina kind of worried. Was something to get in the way of her journey to the Harpies? Merlin, she hoped not. Honestly, it would not have been hard for Selina to find out for sure... but she tried to avoid that skill... made life less exciting and whatnot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by THE Govoni

Wait. It....wasn't?

Dylan eyed the Ravenclaw, trying to decide if she was pulling his leg or not. He'd SAID the word 'apologize'. How was that not considered an apology? It hadn't been sarcastic.

"I also apologize that you think that."

Were they going to have a staring match, now? Merlin, Aspen Odessa was hard to figure out.

Squint.

Aspen continued to STARE at him. She would have kept at it, too, if Professor Elwood hadn't interfered. So...

~To Be Continued...~

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanialRadFAN01

The other Odessa was here and must have been hiding earlier, maybe even she didn't approve of her younger brother's answer earlier?

And yet again she answered or did something that caused the blonde professor to become a little, tiny bit scared of the Ravenclaw. There was something....different with that girl, she was extremely smart and good at her lessons, according to the other professors but there was just something Callie couldn't shake--especially with answers like that.

"Prey? Yes, that actually is probably why the bird didn't have a longer set of prints and is no longer here." Alive....or dead.

Slowly, almost like a BIRD of PREY herself, Aspen turned her attention to the Professor.

Prey. Yep.

Though Aspen did have to wonder at the word probably in the Professor's response. Probably? No. Absolutely. That was secondary to the familiar little hint of fear that Aspen was getting accustomed to from others.

Good.
---

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanialRadFAN01

"And speaking of birds..." Professor Elwood said allowed to the whole class as she raised a hand to point at the Ravenclaw and Slytherin in the back of the group making eyes at each other. "What is going on with these two love birds? Mr. Montmorency and Miss Odessa, if you two could please remove your eyes from staring into each others and please look up here at me or the prints I would appreciate it." She hated to break up whatever little session they were in the middle of but she had Ichnomancy to teach.

....

If Aspen was bothered, it didn't show. She was stoic as ever, staring down the Professor.

Basically, her instructions went as thus:

1. Remove eyes
2. Look at Professor AND/OR prints
3. They would receive appreciation

Hum.

Aspen looked at Dylan. "I'll remove yours first, then you can remove mine." Ladies first and all that. She moved towards Dylan...

And when he ran, she'd study his footprints and make some oh-so-accurate Ichnomancy readings.
--------------------

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanialRadFAN01

"Now how do you think this applies to an actual study of Divination rather than just tracking something? Well when a person is on a journey or a walk and they come across some prints they can interpret how their own journey will go according to the one taken by the animal that left behind the prints. So for instance if I was walking along and I found these duck prints I could assume that my journey would be a rather confused, short one before I had to turn back or change directions due to a hazard." See, simple really.

"So what I would like for you to do is walk around and try and find some other prints and interpret them as if you were out hiking or on a walk." Because they really were kind of.

...But began to laaaaaaaaaaugh about halfway there. Short, dazed, and confused journeys, eh Professor? Merlin that was funny. There was a good reason this was one of her favorite classes always.

Smiling now, she continued towards Dylan. Run, Snake, Ruuuuuun.

It seemed that the Professor did want Nigel to elaborate on his bird answer. But Nigel did not want to say that it looked like a confused bird. But at least she moved on from him because she pointed out Aspen and the slytherin captain having a conversation, not that Nigel cared.

Nigel forgot to bring his notebook today. So he just went right ahead and wandered looking for some prints. It did not take long before he found some prints that looked like two snakes that wanted to get away from something.

"These prints look like two snakes are trying to get away from something. Maybe a predator or maybe they had a race to see who was faster."

The only really way to tell was ask somebody who knew parseltongue to ask the snakes what they were running from.

Patience was good...

Although...what everyone else was saying seemed valid enough. The bird could have been anxious and lost...but that didn't change the fact that the footprints were perfectly formed...

Ooooh. Perhaps it'd been....cautious?...That would've explained...

Dylan's thoughts were his thoughts....but he was STILL staring the Ravvie!Odessa down...letting the Professor's words sink in as he did so. If Aspen was trying to scare him...she could've done a better job.

Selina Skylar had done better on several occasions...

BLINK.

Hearing those words, he did look away from the Ravenclaw, leveling Professor Elwood with a disbelieving look. Love birds? Really?! Could the blonde woman not see that Aspen was trying to intimidate and...emasculate...him?

...and then Ravvie!Odessa was stalking towards him. What had she said? Removing his eyes? Hard glare. "I'd like to see you try." Dylan didn't want to get crazy or hateful here...He'd been in such a good mood...but this girl was NOT removing his eyes.

They were his power...

Squint. "How about we just focus on the lesson? Hmm?"...and continue this outside of classes...where they could kill each other and not get in trouble for it...

....but then she was laughing.......WHY was she laughing?

STARE.

The Ravenclaw kept coming...but Dylan wasn't budging. YES, he was slightly terrified...but they were in public where his teammates could see. As a Captain, he could NOT allow this GIRL to make seem like a sissy boy.

"Listen, Odessa..." He'd try to head this off with some light sarcasm. "...I know you'd like to kiss me or whatever...but it can wait until after class." STAGE EYEROLL.

Sierra began roaming around looking for a set of tracks. She wondered if the professor would be against her just finding someone's footprints and using those? It'd be a lot easier than finding some animal's prints, and at least with a human she'd know what made the prints.

Looking down at the ground, she nearly ran into another student one or two times. Somehow, she managed to narrowly miss them each time. Finally, she happened upon something that definitely wasn't made by a human.

She made a face at the prints. Whatever this was had awkward looking feet, that was for sure. She imagined it having pencil-thin legs that looked like they could buckle out from underneath the animal. Hmm...

Well, yeah she had thought that the professor had meant charateristics in general. But then, she had also thought they were chicken prints. Speaking of which, she could really go for some right now. Fried, served with some nice, hot mashed potatoes, warm buttermilk biscuit........ um yeah, what was she supposed to be doing?

WHAT?!?!? Interpret her journey from animal tracks?!?!? That...... made absolutely zero sense whatsoever. How could a person's journey be the same as an animals, besides running into the same creatures? And even then, there was no reason to expect that that creature would react the same way to a human. While it might run after the animal whose tracks you were following, it could run the opposite direction if it saw you!

With all this in mind, Sky shook her head, then set off to look for footprints. After a few minutes, she found the footprints of someone's cat and studied them. It was hard to tell what exactly had gone on. But maybe...... "I found some cat prints. It looks like it might've been chasing something, maybe a mouse. But I don't like mice. So that must mean I'll be chasing something else. A guy, perhaps? A really hard to get one." Beam.

Jory listened to the instructions and started off just as the others did. He headed for the rocky section of the Lake edge. Instantly, he spotted what looked like paw prints- the cat's. He studied them.

"Well, they come from the direction I just did and by the looks of it, the cat climbed up onto the rocks because the prints vanish there,'' the badger muttered. "But then they are visible again, but this time they lead away from the rocks and out to the left of the direction it came.''

Jory thought. "It's sort of similar to me because if life becomes too hectic especially here at Hogwarts I like to come right here to the Lake, somewhere comfortable, and relax and try to think things over before I proceed. If I think the path I was on won't help me, I change directions.''

He'd LIKE to see her try? Well. Aspen lived to please. She'd been asked last term to take some eyes off or out, too, and hadn't gotten to follow through. So, with this Slytherin's permission and instructions from the Professor -- his eyes would be hers.

Besides, everyone knew snakes didn't need their eyes. They used their tongues and other body parts to sense danger. Apparently Dylan's detection devices were broken.

"These snake tracks, if you want to call them that, seem... skittish to me, Professor." Just to STAY on POINT with the Lesson. Still smiling, Aspen stopped JUST short of Dylan. Her toes were just a hair's length from his and her eyes were going back and forth between his. Would she take the left or right first? "The tracks probably mean that a snake is going to skitter away soon."

Then, LIKE a snake, or a bird plucking a fish from water, Aspen quickly jumped at Dylan, mostly using her neck - and made a little BITEY motion at his face. She wanted him to fall backwards, preferably fall down on his backside - without having to actually touch him.

Kiss him? Fat chance. Make his eye a centerpiece of her bedside table? Definitely would now.

She was stalking closer still...and Dylan quickly got the impression that she was going to punch him in the face. The Ravenclaw definitely had that crazed look in her eye...not that the Slytherin would be too worried about that. He'd gotten punched quite a bit.

People were so touchy these days about the stupidest things...

...This was ODD, though. "I'm skittish?" SNORT. "Perhaps you aren't as intimidating as you THINK you are." It was a total lie, of course. She WAS terrifying...but he wasn't going to be humiliated in front of his peers. NOT happening. "I haven't budged, Aspen."

...And then she was snapping at him...

BLINK. STARE.

When in doubt...SARCASM OUT. "This type of thing in such a public place, Aspen? I didn't think you were that kind of girl."

Two could play this game, Ravenclaw.

Questions again. He KNEW he was skittish and Aspen KNEW he was intimidated by her. But she enjoyed the bravado he was putting on in front of others. Suited her. It kept her smiling at him.

And since he didn't fall down, and was sticking to very, very, very dangerous sarcasm - Aspen decided SHE would be the skittish one.

GAAAAAASP! "SNAKE!" GASP! "SNAKE!" Oh SAVE this kind of girl, Captain!!! DISTRESS!! "The snakes slithered BACK!" GAAAAASP OH NOOO! Who could have ever SEEN that the snakes would come BACK?!?!

No, really, they didn't. But Aspen wanted to knock Dylan down. So she invented snakes, sort of like how Divination invented up scenarios to fit situations. It was ... well, it actually WAS closer to Westomancy.

She flittered around Dylan, seemingly TRYING to get behind him so the OHHHH so brave Captain would protect her - but mostly she was just trying to get her leg behind his knees so that when she PUSHED at him (which she did, to get away from the SNAAAAAAAKES!!!) - he'd trip. And because she was holding on to him, she'd go down with him.

And if that planned worked out...

In the end, Sierra decided the tracks she'd found were the prints of a deer. Having said that, she studied them, trying to come up with something good to say. To her, it looked like the deer had started out on a journey and changed its mind and turned back around. It also looked like some other animal had intervened at some point, crossing over the deer's path.

"So this is what I've determined about these tracks," Sierra said, spinning around and facing Ellwood. "They belong to a deer, and it looks like the deer started in a certain direction and then something changed his mind, so he turned around and went back. It also looks like some other animal interfered and crossed over the deer's path."

"I think this means I may try to go down one particular life path, but something will cause me to change me mind and turn around and take a different approach," she said. Yup. Made sense to her.

The brunette nodded at the Professor and smiled slightly. Anxious and scared. Yeah. It definitely seemed so. She momentarily wondered what had possibly caused it to feel that way.

..She turned her head to the direction the woman's finger pointed out. It was Dylan, and Aspen. Love birds, huh? Her eyes fleeted to the two, resting for a few seconds particularly on the snake. Well...it looked as though he had a thing for her....the way he stared. Not that it was any of her business.

So, biting her bottom lip, she forced her head back to face the Divination Professor, reigning her full attention back to the class with slight difficulty .

Meh.

Okay...mind back to the lesson.

Nodding some more, she took note of what Professor Elwood said about relatively applying the implication of the prints to one person's journey. She, herself decided that yes, if she was treading along and saw those duck prints, she'd take it as a sign that her walk wasn't going to be all pleasant and full of confusion instead.

Hm. Maybe Divination was starting to make sense to her now?

..They were going to walk. And find some other prints. Okay.

Crossing her arms, she joined in as her classmates began to scatter around the edge of the Lake. Step. Step. Step....making sure not to bump into anyone as her head remained down in search for prints.

"There you go," she muttered upon seeing a set of paw prints along the rocky side. She crouched down and eyed it intently for a few moments. This one looked rather confused too just like the duck prints. Err...it also looked as though there were spaces when the animal lingered for a while longer compared to the other areas. Some prints were contorted, inconsistent, seemingly uncertain but despite the constant swerving in various directions, it kept going on.

.......O.o .......

So...her journey was going to a long one but with incertitude and doubt mostly along the way?

Also.....Beezus straightened, swaying a bit as she stood up. Ugh. Stupid headache. Meh. Where was Professor Elwood?

"Professor!" She quickly jogged to where the woman was and caught sight of the two love birds from earlier as she neared. What were they doing? O.o Oh, whatever. "Professor, do we also take into consideration the surroundings where we found the prints? Or are we just supposed to focus on them?" She was curious. Her prints were found somewhere rocky, so it readily occurred to her that obstacles were dominant...but what if she found it on let's say, mud..with grass patches around? That would change the interpretation a bit.

Huh...?

Dylan was totally lost when she started spazzing and flipping out about snakes. It was difficult for him to believe she was scared of those creatures, considering how scary she was herself...So, suspicion had been placed....

...Then she was darting behind him...

Not really getting this whole scene, the Slytherin was prepared to ignore stuff and just go back to looking at tracks...He'd seen some snake ones he'd wanted to try and analyse...The Captain would take Ms. Odessa on at another time...in private where he wouldn't lose points or be thrown in detention for a month...

...BUT THEN SUDDENLY he was pushed! Dylan tried to quickly place his foot where he could maintain balance...but it failed. Down he went...

O.O

What......in the...........?!

Quote:

Originally Posted by THE Govoni

Huh...?

Dylan was totally lost when she started spazzing and flipping out about snakes. It was difficult for him to believe she was scared of those creatures, considering how scary she was herself...So, suspicion had been placed....

...Then she was darting behind him...

Not really getting this whole scene, the Slytherin was prepared to ignore stuff and just go back to looking at tracks...He'd seen some snake ones he'd wanted to try and analyse...The Captain would take Ms. Odessa on at another time...in private where he wouldn't lose points or be thrown in detention for a month...

...BUT THEN SUDDENLY he was pushed! Dylan tried to quickly place his foot where he could maintain balance...but it failed. Down he went...

O.O

What......in the...........?!

...then Aspen would fall ON HIM.

She did. Timber. Two seventh years, falling down because of a pair of imaginary snakes. Nothing out of the ordinary about that.

And they'd make some animal tracks of their own, see? They were contributing to the lesson. One that came across their prints might predict a one-eyed Captain getting intimidated after all.

She put her hand over his mouth to try and ease the situation. "We're okay! I think it was just a stick. My bad. Sorry, Professor." Everyone go back to what they were doing. Aspen turned her attention back to Dylan, whom she was very much on top of in all the chaos. He wasn't going anywhere without bucking her off. Sooo.... her fingers crept up from his mouth... tip-toed on fingertips... and walked slooowly up to his eye....